Breaking the Cycle of Anxiety: Strategies for Closure

Yesterday I got paperwork done. The real kind. The kind that doesn’t just move things forward—it ends things.

It felt good.
It felt bad.
It felt like both at the same time, because that’s what endings do when you didn’t want the ending… but you know it’s happening anyway.

There’s a term in sociology for what this period can be: role exit—the messy process of becoming “the ex-thing you used to be” (Ebaugh, 1988). Ex-owner. Ex-operator. Ex-provider. It’s not just losing income or a routine. It’s losing an identity that used to organize your days (Goffman, 1959). And the hard part is: you don’t flip a switch and become the new version of yourself overnight. You drift. You wobble. You do the paperwork, but your nervous system is still trying to understand what just happened.

And yesterday, I caught myself doing something I need to stop.

I’ve been using other people to find out information—current situations, what’s happening with my replacement, what’s being said, what’s going on behind the curtain. I’m not proud of it, but I’m also not going to pretend I don’t understand why I do it.

When you don’t have control, you start trying to buy certainty in small, sneaky ways.

You tell yourself it’s “just checking.”
You tell yourself it’s “being informed.”
But what it really is—most of the time—is anxiety looking for a pressure valve.

Psychologically, checking can turn into a loop: uncertainty triggers discomfort, discomfort triggers “just one more check,” and the check gives short-term relief—until the uncertainty returns and demands another payment. That loop is one of the reasons rumination sticks: it feels like problem-solving, but often functions like emotional self-soothing that never actually resolves the situation (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991).

And here’s the part that matters:

It isn’t fair to put other people in the position I’m putting them in.

Even if they volunteer.
Even if they don’t mind.
Even if they think they’re helping.

Because “helping me get information” can quietly become “helping me stay stuck.”

So I’m drawing a line.

No more sending people in to scout for me.
No more turning friends into instruments of my anxiety.
If I need an answer, I’ll get it through the proper channels—or I’ll sit with not knowing.

And yeah, that last part is the hardest: sitting with not knowing.

But that’s discipline.
That’s direction.
That’s me learning that closure isn’t something you extract from the outside world—it’s something you build internally, one honest decision at a time.

Today there’s weather coming in, and I’ve got work I need to do outside.

And I’m procrastinating.

Not because I’m lazy.
Because I hate the cold.

And because aversive tasks make the mind start negotiating: later… in an hour… after coffee… once I feel ready…

There’s solid research framing procrastination less as “bad character” and more as short-term mood repair—avoiding the thing that feels bad right now, even if it makes tomorrow heavier (Steel, 2007; Pychyl & Sirois, 2016).

So here’s my deal with myself today:

I don’t have to win the whole day.
I have to start the day.

Boots on.
Gloves on.
Ten minutes outside.

Not because it solves my life.
Because it proves I still move.

And then there’s the book.

I published it. It’s short—24 pages—but it’s real. The proof copy is supposed to arrive Friday (or thereabouts). If everything looks right, it goes live.

That matters more than it sounds like it should.

Because in a season where so much is being taken apart, one finished thing is a brick. A marker. A signal flare that says: I’m not only losing things—I’m still building things, too.

This chapter isn’t dramatic. It’s not heroic. It’s just honest:

• I did some closure work.
• I felt the ambivalence.
• I saw a pattern I don’t want to carry forward.
• I’m choosing to stop feeding it—no matter how comforting it is in the moment.

That’s it for today.

Godspeed.

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Acknowledgement (Physician, Heal Thyself)

This section exists as a lived reminder of the line between insight and practice.

Physician, heal thyself isn’t a slogan here—it’s a mirror. It’s the uncomfortable truth that knowing the right words is not the same as living them, and that self-awareness means nothing if it doesn’t change what I do next.

I acknowledge the people I’ve leaned on during this collapse—friends, contacts, bystanders who answered questions, took calls, and listened when I couldn’t hold my own thoughts in place. I also acknowledge my responsibility not to recruit them as proxies for my anxiety, not to pull them into situations that are not theirs to carry.

This is me putting it in writing: I can’t preach boundaries and then outsource my uncertainty. I can’t speak about integrity and then chase reassurance through other people.

So this acknowledgement is both gratitude and correction—thanks for the support, and a promise to stop misusing it.

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References (APA)

• Ebaugh, H. R. F. (1988). Becoming an ex: The process of role exit. University of Chicago Press.
• Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday.
• Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1991). Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100(4), 569–582.
• Pychyl, T. A., & Sirois, F. M. (2016). Procrastination, emotion regulation, and well-being. In F. M. Sirois & T. A. Pychyl (Eds.), Procrastination, health, and well-being (pp. 163–188). Elsevier.
• Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94.